Could pot be good for your heart?

OK, so it’s definitely an exaggeration to say that smoking a bowl is good for your heart but it turns out that pot’s major psychoactive component does have some benefits to keeping your heart safe during a major coronary blockage. According to a study published in Biochemical Pharmacology, administering a tiny dose of tetrahydrocannabinol (a.k.a., THC) can help reduce damage done to your heart if you’re suffering from myocardial ischemia, which is what happens when your heart’s arteries are partially or completely blocked.

Essentially, the researchers injected a tiny dosage of THC — “3-4 orders of magnitude lower than the conventional doses,” according to the researchers — into mice anywhere from two hours to three days before inducing myocardial ischemia. The result was the THC reduced damage to the heart in all cases, which means that having just a little bit of THC in your system might not be the worst thing if you’re suffering from a heart attack.